Using UK servers provided by AirVPN?

[the1lemming 4]

Hello,

 

I'm a bit confused and would appreciate some advice on choice of servers offered by AirVPN.

 

If I use a UK server from those of the AirVPN servers are those servers subject to UK law, as in if the government comes knocking then those servers have to hand over everything relating to me?

 

Or am I completely wrong and that the servers are completely fine and I am just getting confused?

 

Cheers

[greenclaydog 6]

Due to the legislation, i cannot personally recommend using servers in the UK. 

 

However, on the technical end AirVPN's servers in the UK have not yet been impacted by the IP bill as far as i am aware.

 

AirVPN has not made any statements (That i can recall) regarding Air and the future of the UK servers. 

 

That being said, PIA has issued their own statement on the IP bill 

 

The United Kingdom has passed a draconian mass surveillance law, the Investigatory Powers Act (IP Act), which will force the collection of UK internet connection records for a whole year. We want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Private Internet Access doesn’t store traffic logs or connection records of any kind.

We are the premier no log Virtual Private Network (VPN). What this means is that even when we are served with government requests, warrants, or subpoenas, we respond with the truth: We keep no logs.

Private Internet Access has been following the progression of the Investigatory Powers Bill with a keen eye over the last year. We have planned out several possible solutions to maintain our users’ security and privacy no matter what ends up happening. Exactly how the IP Act will be enforced remains to be seen.

Upon confirming that the Investigatory Powers Act had received Royal Assent on November 30th, we temporarily pointed all UK traffic at NL servers as a precautionary measure. As of December 1st, UK London and UK Southampton exit nodes will connect and provide a UK IP address as normal. Our datacenter partners have advised us that the Investigatory Powers Act is not yet being enforced and the specifics of how and when it will be enforced, and who will pay for it, is still to be determined.

Private Internet Access is confident that both UK customers and non-UK customers can connect to our UK London and UK Southampton servers without worrying about internet connection records. We are closely monitoring this law and are prepared to take action should this change. 

Compensating for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that logs your activity is one of the primary uses of a VPN privacy service.  All VPN traffic is encrypted so your ISP’s logs are useless.  Therefore whether UK ISPs start logging due to this law or have been logging the entire time, Private Internet Access has protected your privacy throughout.

We will be working with the top tech lawyers and our datacenter partners in the UK to stay on top of the IP Bill as it starts being enforced. If things change for the worse, we are prepared to leave the UK as we did forRussia when similar draconian laws were passed and enforced.

Thank you for your continued support and helping us fight the good fight.

Sincerely,The Private Internet Access Team

 

It would seem implementation of the IP bills effects has not occurred yet, and the exact time of said implementation is unknown.

 

I would NOT use UK servers or US servers under any circumstances for obvious reasons, but if you choose to do so you probably do not have anything to worry about until AirVPN says you do. 

[trott3r 6]

The web site logging started in january i believe in the uk although the law was not publicly acknowledged due to it being hidden under a national security overide.

 

The information was thankfully leaked to the public.

[greenclaydog 6]

The web site logging started in january i believe in the uk although the law was not publicly acknowledged due to it being hidden under a national security overide.

 

The information was thankfully leaked to the public.

 

So AirVPN UK servers are now potentially logging user activity?

 

I would really like to see Staff clarify on this issue themselves. 

[zhang888 1065]

Servers cannot log (unless compromised or configured to do so), it's your metadata and communication within the UK borders that can be logged by your ISP.

Not that it did not happen in many aspects before, the actual argument here is which government employees will have a free access to that data.

Connections to all servers are still encrypted with the same strong ciphers, and outbound connections cannot be directly correlated to individual activity,

this is not an easy task to correlate traffic from 70-100 simultaneous international users to match specific user activity.

[bluesjunior 39]

Some of you people are verging on paranoia.

[greenclaydog 6]

Some of you people are verging on paranoia.

The IP bill is a real threat to your online communications.

 

Its not paranoia, this legislation is quite possibly the most intrusive piece of legislation on your online activities to ever be introduced in the western world.

 

Regardless of your thoughts on it, when using a VPN you should always use another country, even if it's one that's close by, so that your data is in another jurisdiction.

 

Common sense.

[Staff 9750]

The Investigatory Powers Bill scope is not applicable to our company, and it can be challenged after it has been found by the Europen Union Court of Justice incompatible with human rights and EU legal framework (EUCJ decision of December 21, 2016). After the defeat at the EUCJ, various parts of the Act pertaining to data retention are not operative and the technical implementation has been frozen. UK government announced "an appeal" against the decision.

The Act provides three main lines of investigation: interception, interference and retention. The first two methods may cover datacenters in the UK, but they do not pose new challenges. The same can happen, and has happened, legally or illegally, virtually in any country in the world (see our article from 2011 about partition of trust). About retention, our policy does not change and any interferences with that will cause us to discontinue any server in the UK, just like we already did in France..

Kind regards

[the1lemming 4]

The Investigatory Powers Bill scope is not applicable to our company, and it can be challenged after it has been found by the Europen Union Court of Justice incompatible with human rights and EU legal framework (EUCJ decision of December 21, 2016).

Good evening Staff,

 

Thank you for taking the time to get involved in my original question and for such a comprehensive reply.  I am ashamed to admit that I do not fully understand the content and context of your reply.

 

From my limited understanding of your comments, can I take it that I can use the UK servers knowing that my surfing the internet including sites like the BBC iPlayer won't be logged or such things like that and that I can go about my airVPN use as normal.

 

However if you suggest that I use other servers outside of the UK then I will follow that advice.  As I said at the outset, I am a law abiding citizen, I just want to maintain my privacy and fully accept and understand that if GCHQ and  the NSA want to then they can find out if I like watching British comedies and drama.  Good luck to them for all that manpower and effort.

 

However I'm hoping that my use of AirVPN and British servers will be too much faff and trouble for my internet service provider to even bother with me.

 

Thanks